“Yes—he comes by this train. Now the house will wake up again!”
The speaker was a short, stout man with a round, good-humoured face, who sat in a motor outside the station. He was Evan Holmes, of Holmdale, the largest station in the district. Like all the other landowners, he had felt the drought; but, unlike them, he had a well-grassed property in Gippsland, where there was no drought, and he had sent his stock there until better conditions should come to the northern areas. Therefore his good-humour was unfailing, and no lines of worry had creased his brow. John Weston and he had been to school together, and, so far as was possible, he had stood by his old friend, sending some of his best cattle to Gippsland with his own. He looked up now and spoke concerning these.
“Heard from McIntyre this morning, John. He says your stock are doing splendidly.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for, at any rate,” said Weston.
“Wonderful season, down there. They grumble, of course, and say it’s dry—but compared to here——!” The speaker swept a hand round the dry landscape. “Green feed—strawberry clover, and all the rest of it: running creeks. I sometimes wonder we don’t all move down there.”
“This part is good enough for me,” said his friend. “We don’t get a drought every year.”
“That’s true. And you can’t beat it when we don’t. A man likes his own country, especially when he was born and brought up in it, as you and I were. Oh, well, bad times pass: everything comes right, if you give it long enough. How do the girls like coming home?”
“They write as if it were a huge joke: but of course I knew they wouldn’t grumble, whatever they might feel. The only thing that seemed to worry them was that their mother and I wouldn’t go down for the breaking-up.”
“Yes, that would worry the twins,” said Mr. Holmes. “Tom was a bit disgusted that I couldn’t get down for his, too: but my wife went. She’ll be home on Christmas Eve, but Tom wouldn’t stay: he always makes for home as quickly as he can. There’s the train now”—as a far-off whistle was heard. “Let my man hold your horses—he’s brought the cart in for some boxes. Here, Joe!” He whistled to a man who was lounging near the entrance-gate. John Weston got down from his high seat, and they went in together to the platform, where Billy was already dancing with impatience.
There was no difficulty in finding Jean and Jo. They had secured an open doorway, and, in complete defiance of railway regulations, were projecting their persons as far as possible into space, that they might the more quickly reach home. They uttered a composite shout at the sight of their father and Billy, and further defied the regulations by swinging themselves down from the train before it had come to a standstill. A wail from the station-master floated by them unheeded. They darted up the platform together and flung themselves upon their father.